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Chapter 13 - The Tainted Tunnels
Prison gates won't open up for me
On these hands and knees I'm crawlin'
Oh, I reach for you
Well I'm terrified of these four walls
These iron bars can't hold my soul in
All I need is you
Come please I'm callin'
all I scream for you
Hurry I'm fallin', I'm fallin'
Savin' me - nickelback..
.
.
Their eyes grew accustomed to the darkness, but before they could move, Fiona's staff sent out a light that dimly lit the path ahead. Alistair turned to her, and his gaze showed her how grateful he was. She only smiled and focused once more on the path ahead.
They moved slowly, pausing to listen and trying to sense any darkspawn in the tunnels. There was no familiar tingle, no hum, nothing. Alistair figured they were probably deeper inside.
They walked on and on, without feeling the slightest thing, their footsteps scarcely making no noise on the earthen ground, when suddenly Alistair, who was leading the group, held out his hand, motioning all to stop.
There it was, a faint tingle. He could feel it very well and judging by the look on his companions, they could too. The only ones that stood there and didn't feel it, but knew that something was up ahead judging by their looks, were Leliana and Fiona.
"Twenty," Fernan whispered. "Two emissaries."
Alistair nodded.
"Listen up quickly. The last time we tried our tactics on them, they didn't work, so we'll do something different now. You all know we have to take the emissaries down first. But this time, let's not take them down...let's focus on archers, and let the mages handle the emissaries," he whispered, Anders and Fiona nodded, both had serious expressions on their faces. "I know we'll be taking chances...they may throw a crushing prison spell on you both, but we have to take chances in order to bring them down. And we also have to be quick about taking down their archers. Then we can move faster, towards their emissaries."
"Riiiight," said Anders. "Let's all watch as the mages are lifted off their feet, while being crushed."
"Too funny, Anders," Alistair shot back. "Remind me to laugh once this is all over."
"Count on it," Anders quipped back.
"Here they come," Fernan cautioned.
And without a word to anyone, Alistair charged, full speed, as the first two genlocks came into view.
He dodged them, his shield crushing into them as he wound his way through the hurlocks next, spotting the archers up ahead, with the emissaries flanking them. He hurled himself close and flung his arm out, cleansing the area, buying the mages time to shoot their offensive spells at the emissaries, and then he started to hack into the nearest darkspawn archer.
Oghren let out his beserker cry and swung his axe around the other archer, cutting it in two neatly. Marcus's shield bashed into a third archer, and he turned to crush the end of his hilt directly onto the face of one of the emissaries.
Chantalle, in the meantime, was dancing around a group of five genlocks, avoiding the hurlocks on purpose. They were heavier, and therefore slower, true, but she wanted to get rid of the fastest first, and so she hacked and did not stop till they lay dead on her feet. Her eyes glinted madly with something that looked like joy in the half-light.
Leliana caught the look and shuddered, not pausing to reflect on it, but continued to shoot fire arrows at the creatures instead. She alone managed to take down a couple of hurlocks, and focused on the rest, grimacing.
The remaining darkspawn were all hurlocks. The emissaries were suspended in the air, arms flailing as they twitched under crushing prison spells which they had tried to shoot at Anders and Fiona unsuccessfully. Alistair cleansing the area previously had done the trick and they had no mana left to call forth the spells that would stop them.
Ten minutes later, they all stood and grinned at each other. Nobody had been hurt and all the darkspawn lay dead at their feet.
Alistair turned around then, and his heart sank.
"Holy Maker!" Anders hissed. "I can feel a really big group ahead! Can you feel it?"
"Yes," Alistair replied quietly. He turned to eye the rest, and they nodded. "In war, victory. In peace, vigilance. In death-"
"Sacrifice," all of them replied.
The tunnel ahead was suddenly full of darkspawn. Alistair could feel a hundred easily, give or take. He stole a glance at Chantalle, who grinned wickedly at him, and he felt his heart sing.
"For the Grey Wardens!" He yelled, and the rest replied the same words with a roar.
Then they flung themselves at the advancing darkspawn.
...
They hacked their way into the horde, not pausing, never relenting. Their shouts and battle cries easily heard above the din, the mages firing their offensive spells at the darkspawn that advanced. Fiona hit them all with a sleep spell which bade them some time and helped them cut through the front lines.
An hour passed quickly and Alistair felt himself tiring. He didn't stop to glance at the others, because he knew that if he did, he would be dead. He gritted his teeth and plunged onward, stopping at no one, pausing for nothing. His feet and shoulders ached and his shield arm felt numb, but he continued in spite of it all.
They managed to break through the last line of the darkspawn defense when a shout was heard. It was not coming from them.
Alistair froze. The shout was coming from the within the remaining bulk of the darkspawn.
There was a darkspawn that was doing the shouting. And it spoke in Ferelden.
"Lower your weapons."
Alistair grimaced as he obeyed, remembering the Architect.
The fighting stopped completely. The darkspawn parted and revealed a path leading up to a single darkspawn standing at the end, waiting for Alistair to approach.
Nothing moved, nobody spoke, and Alistair slowly made his way up to where the creature stood, grinning madly at him, its sharp teeth glinting maliciously in the dim light.
"We will talk now." Its voice had a grating tone to it that chilled Alistair's bones. Yet he did not flinch. Giving a nod, he waited for the darkspawn to speak.
"You, Grey Wardens. Follow me," it spoke again and Alistair and his companions followed.
...
They followed it into a natural underground cavern and it stood in front of them, waiting for all of them to gather around.
When it spoke, it did not speak very loudly, yet its voice could be heard clearly.
"We will not battle you. You seek the source of this. We will tell you what we know. You will understand that we want to end the bloodshed. And you will understand that there is only one way to do it."
"Please," Alistair said, nearly spitting out the words. "Don't try to give us a speech about how Grey Wardens and all of you want the same thing. Don't tell me you also want to avoid future Blights. I've heard this before from the Architect, but the Architect is dead."
"The Architect was wrong. The Architect did not do things correctly. It took too many risks," the darkspawn said, grinding its teeth.
Fiona scoffed behind Alistair audibly. "The Architect wanted to sacrifice everything and everyone. Including other darkspawn."
"That is not important right now. What is important is that you listen to what is happening. I am not the person who leads the darkspawn. I do not have the answers. But I have been told to not fight you. You will have to journey back from where you came and continue south east, until you reach Orzammar. There you will find our leader, The Beloved. There you will discover what you fight and who you must fight."
"Your leader is in Orzammar? In the Deep Roads?" Alistair asked quickly, his eyes dark and foreboding.
"Yes. There you must travel. You will find The Beloved in what you call The Deep Trenches. You will find the answers you seek. We will go now. And we will stop fighting you until you speak to The Beloved."
It said no more and left them standing there.
One by one the darkspawn retreated, until they were left alone in the tunnels.
Nobody spoke for a few minutes. Then Alistair cleared his throat.
"Well. It looks like we're going back to the compound after all. I wonder if Duran is back?" He said in a loud voice.
"There are also twenty wardens coming from Amaranthine, Commander," Anders whispered.
"Yes, I haven't forgotten about that..." Alistair's voice sounded strangled. He sighed.
They turned and followed him back into the dark tunnels, but even as their feet carried them on, their hearts bore a burden that was fast turning into a dead weight.
...
The way back seemed longer to them somehow. They stopped to camp on the surface, and were exhausted by the time everything had been set up.
Fiona approached Alistair, standing before him. He was sitting in front of the fire, his eyes distant and brooding. He looked up when he saw her shadow over him.
"Yes, Fiona? What can I do for you?"
"Can I sit here?" She nodded at a trunk next to him.
"Of course."
She sat and stared into the fire, and at that moment, Leliana approached the fire and stopped still in her tracks. She was a very observant bard, Leliana. So observant that what she saw now made her breath catch in her throat. Both Alistair and Fiona were staring into the fire and both had identical expressions in their eyes and on their faces. Leliana was startled. It almost seemed as though they were related! But that could not be so. She shook her head, clearing her mind and turned to the stew bubbling in the pot over the fire.
"You know that this 'Beloved' is probably a darkspawn that is trying to follow in the Architect's footsteps, don't you, Commander?" Fiona began, giving Alistair a long, searching look.
"Yes. I do," Alistair said. "And I'm not going to agree to anything it says."
"Good," she smiled.
After a while, she spoke again, and did not look at him when she did, keeping her eyes on the fire.
"Duncan would have been proud of you. He died at Ostagar, didn't he?"
Alistair turned his eyes on her, completely dumbstruck at her words. After a moment, he found his voice and spoke.
"You...knew...Duncan?"
"Yes, he was a close friend of mine. I was there when he was recruited into the order," she smiled wistfully, remembering that time so long ago when the dark-haired boy had nearly been put to death for murdering a Grey Warden. She decided not to give Alistair the details, as it was plain to see that he had admired Duncan, and she didn't want to do anything that would destroy his admiration for him.
"Oh!" Alistair got out, and after a while he said, "What was he like?"
"He was brave beyond words. He rode on the back of a dragon to save us once," she laughed at the memory, though at the time, it had not been a laughing situation. "He also had very sticky fingers."
"Sticky fingers?" He asked, smiling at her.
Fiona laughed. "Well, he was a rogue and a cutpurse. He picked pockets to live. He was so used to stealing that it frequently got him into trouble. I'll tell you more about that later. Anyway, it was not a very glamorous past, but our Commander saw he was fit to become a Grey Warden, and so he did. He was very young when he joined, probably five or six years younger than you."
Alistair smiled again, his lopsided grin bearing into her very soul and wrenching her heart a little. Maric had had the exact same grin. She sighed softly and turned back to the fire.
"He believed whole-heartedly that the Grey Wardens must do whatever is necessary to stop the Blight. Sometimes I wonder if he would have sided with the Architect. But then I stop myself from having these thoughts when I remember what others did not see at the time when he was young, reckless and hot-blooded."
"And what was that?"
She turned to face him and gave him a brilliant grin that lit up her features.
"He was a good man."
She stood up then, and walked towards her tent, leaving him sitting there staring after her.
Somehow, she felt familiar, but he could not place what he felt when he was with her. Aside from that feeling, he also knew after talking about Duncan with her that she admired and cared about him.
And that alone was enough for him to warm up to her.
...
Chantalle returned from bathing in the nearby stream. She saw Fiona leave Alistair's side and immediately walked up to where he was and sat down next to him. His eyes lit up and he put his arms around her, kissing her forehead gently.
"Mmmm. You smell delicious," he breathed in her scent.
"Not the same can be said of you, unfortunately!" She exclaimed as laughter bubbled up inside her and left her mouth.
"He-ey! That's not very nice," he protested, bending down to kiss her rosy lips.
Leliana then informed everyone that dinner was ready and they ate, while they chatted and laughed at each other's stories and comments. As soon as dinner was over, Alistair excused himself.
"I'll be back. You've offended me deeply, so I'm off to wash myself in the stream, and I can then smell better for you." He wiggled his eyebrows at her and turned to leave, a smile on his lips.
"Commander!" Anders called out after him, causing him to pause and turn to look at him questioningly. "I've some rose-scented soap, it's very...strong!"
"Ha, ha. Very funny," Alistair replied as Chantalle and Leliana dissolved into giggles. Fiona merely smiled and looked up at him, her eyes full of love.
Leliana caught the look, before Fiona had a chance to look away quickly. Her eyes focused on the fire in front of her, and Alistair retreated to the stream, whistling happily.